


Bend Me Til I Break

by Teaotter



Category: Zombies Took My Daughter!
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-18
Updated: 2014-12-18
Packaged: 2018-03-02 00:21:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2792990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teaotter/pseuds/Teaotter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A zombie apocalypse: the boogeyman of small-minded naysayers whenever a new virus is weaponized. <em>What if it turns people into zombies?</em> They ask.  <em>What if it gets out of control?</em> As if it's somehow possible to control a virus once it's let it into the wild. May as well try to control people's minds.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bend Me Til I Break

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Shusu (Sameshima_Shuzumi)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sameshima_Shuzumi/gifts).



> In case you somehow end up here without knowing the canon, the game takes about fifteen minutes or so to play:
> 
> [Zombies Took My Daughter!](http://www.kongregate.com/games/nerdook/zombies-took-my-daughter?acomplete=zombies) at Kongregate

Steve blinks woozily in the darkness, trying to figure out where he is. He aches all over; exhaustion and bruises, he thinks, worse than a long day on the training field. The air is cool and damp, and something rustles nearby.

“Hey, man.”

He turns his head slowly toward the voice, and can just make out the shape of another person against the dim light coming from some skylight above.

“Don't try to move yet.” The woman crouches down next to him. “Found a first aid kit and patched you up, but it's gonna be a little while before you can run anywhere.”

“What happened?” He has a vague memory of yelling, gunshots, bodies pulling him down. That makes sense, but he also has an unshakable memory of stench, like rotten food. Dull, film-covered eyes. His head isn't working right; his thoughts are all fuzzy.

“Pack of zoms ambushed us on Elm.” She shrugs, glancing nervously over her shoulder. “I got the last one off and dragged you down here. You were right; they don't come down to the tunnels.”

“I told you that?” Steve tries to sit up, but pain shoots sharply through him -- his shoulders, his belly -- and he has to sag back to the ground and get his breathing under control. 

She doesn't move to help him up. “You don't remember?”

“Would I ask if I did?”

“I don't know, man. World's gone crazy.” She shrugs again. “There's a ferry docked up near Beacon Court Station; the army's grabbing survivors and getting us out of here. You were stupid enough to come here with them. Said you were looking for your daughter.”

“Anna?” His head spins as he sits up, a sense of panic fighting with the pain. “Anna's here? Where is she?”

“I don't know. You had some kind of map on your phone you were looking at, that's all I know.”

Steve starts searching his pockets for his phone, barely paying enough attention to see the woman get slowly to her feet.

“I'd help you, but -- I have to get to the ferry before it leaves.” She stands there for a second, waiting. As if he'd want to go with her, when Anna's out there somewhere.

He's got at least a dozen notes on his phone, and a map of the city that he's been marking off as he goes.

The woman finally moves farther into the darkness. “I hope you find her.”

*****

_“Dad? Dad, you have to come get me. I need your help. Please, Dad, come get me --”_

Beep. _End of saved messages._

*****

The footage on his phone is sickeningly familiar, even if he doesn't remember putting it there. The first news reports were shocked, almost sensationalistic, showing clip after clip of shaky cellphone camera videos like something out of a horror movie. The walking dead. Zombies. They were the usual bogeyman whenever the idea of a viral terror strike came up, but Steve hadn't thought it was possible. He'd never have pushed for it, if he'd known.

The news reports cut out a few days ago, and from his notes, it's only gotten worse. He's seen no living soul on the streets, no birds in the sky, or even flies at the bodies. The only things moving are the rain and the shambling undead. That kind of devastation doesn't bode well for the survivors... but it doesn't matter. He has to get Anna out of here.

At least he doesn't have to search the whole city. Cell phones, laptops, notes on bulletin boards -- the people who survived the first few days here had tried to leave trails for each other. They wanted to be found. So far, there's no trace of Anna in any of the notes, but he knows where not to look.

Searching the bodies is terrible work. The stench of them; the limp way they move as he turns them over. Dried pools of blood. Viscera, when the zombies had gotten to them. Of all of them, these memories are the most vivid, and edged with fear. So many bodies.

It terrifies him that Anna might already be one of them.

*****

He finds the occasional survivor huddling indoors. It takes precious time, but Steve leads them to the subway tunnels. He explains about the ferry, and makes sure they can read the station maps.

There were more than a million people in this city last week. He's not sure a thousand of them will make it out.

*****

Steve's heart nearly stops when he finally finds her -- hanging from the ceiling in a trashed apartment, just another suicide like the dozens he'd already come across. 

He hadn't been fast enough.

But then her eyes blink open, clear and brown. “Dad? Dad!”

Steve rushes toward her, his hands fumbling at the hook above her head. She's in some kind of harness, something -- to look like the suicides, maybe, though he isn't sure why --

Her legs fold beneath her when he finally gets her down, and they both sink to the dirty floor. He wraps his arms around her -- warm, solid, breathing. He thinks they're both shaking.

She smells just the way he remembers from her last visit home, shampoo and laundry detergent. It's out of place among all the death. 

“How did you --” he starts to ask, but she talks over him.

“I thought you'd never come, I thought you wouldn't find me,” she says in a rush.

“No, no.” He pulls her closer. “I'd never let you get hurt.”

He feels her freeze in his arms. “But you let them do this.”

“Do what?” But he has a sinking feeling that he knows, that _she_ knows -- 

\-- and she pulls back, face smudged and eyes red with tears. “There was a man here earlier. He said you worked for the people who set off the bomb. And you do, don't you? I've heard what you say about the government.”

“I don't give a fuck about the government right now!” Steve keeps his voice down by an effort of will. He can't hear any moaning over the rain out the window, but they're nearby. They're always nearby. “We don't have time to argue. Once we get to the ferry --”

“It's the end of the world, Dad, didn't you hear?” Anna laughs tiredly. “It isn't just killing people. Once a virus crosses the species lines, it spreads like wildfire. You know I'm right. There's nowhere to go.”

She's right. Of course she's right. But -- “We have to try.”

“Why?” Anna pushes away from him to sag back against the wall. “So you can get back to your friends and set another one of these off in the capital?”

“I didn't do this!” 

“Of course not,” Anna scoffs. “You were only going to kill -- what? A few thousand people?”

So many bodies...

Steve lurches to his feet, grabs Anna's arm, and tries to pull her up with him “We have to go. Get up!”

“What if we could stop it?” Anna lets him yank her upright, but she won't move toward the window. She fists her hands in the lapels of his jacket and makes him meet her eyes. “What if we could still stop it?”

“Stop what? You're the one who called it the end of the world.”

“Just tell me where you put the canisters.” Her voice is suddenly fierce, and she's crying again. “Tell me, and we can go.”

The lights begin to flicker, inside the room and out, like a million birds are passing overhead. The shadows in the rooms shift and flicker with them. “It doesn't matter any more --”

“If you tell me, they'll let us go!”

Her eyes track behind him, and widen in fear. He's already turning, gun raised, before he thinks: _They'll let us go?_

“Don't hurt him! He'll tell me, he will, don't hurt him!”

Anna is backing away; Steve can hear her voice moving, and he tries to stay with her. Stay between her and whatever the hell is moving around in the shadows. For a moment, the room fills with fog, a gray blankness that swallows everything.

Steve yells for Anna to run, as something crashes into his side. He tries to shoot, but the gun is gone. His hands close on empty air just as a burning numbness starts in his side. When he looks down, it's not a bleeding wound, but a hypodermic dart.

The room is empty. Black, empty of everything but the fog. Nothing but him and Anna and some kind of equipment. Projectors? 

_What the hell is going on?_ Steve has time to think before everything goes dark.

*****

It's dark. Wherever he is, the air is damp, and the ground is cold and rocky. He hurts all over, like a bad hangover, or the day after a long run on the training field. Steve tries to remember where he is. Why he's here.

Why this all feels so familiar.


End file.
